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Thrash/Shred Rhythm Ideas

Hello again all! I’ve heard some mention of galloping rhythm around the boards recently and it reminded me of some rhythmic pattern approaches I worked out a few years ago. So, I took some time this morning and typed of this power tab file of what I call “rhythmic building blocks.” Basically, they are just 1 and 2 beat rhythmic ideas (made of 8th and 16th notes) that I heard again and again when I was learning thrash rhythm. Run through these little rhythm patterns and get a feel for them, they might inspire you too write a new riff or just help with getting in the groove. Patterns such as these show up a lot in thrash and shred riffs especially in the works of Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Fear Factory, In Flames, Iron Maiden, and hundreds more. The 1 beat ideas are the little galloping things everyone is probably familiar with. The 2 beat ideas are constructions that are not just simple combinations of the 1 beat ideas. In other words, I didn’t include 16-16-8-16-16-8 as a two beat idea since it is just two 1 beat patterns of 16-16-8. In the file each pattern is played slowly with a percussive sound so you can lock into that pattern’s rhythmic feel. This is followed by and example riff using that particular pattern. Rehersal signs A through K show the patterns. Example L is a riff that is randomly thrown together from the patterns, it doesn’t sound too bad but is a little uninspired since it is just a random construction. Example M includes rests and has that machine gun style feel like a Fear Factory song or something. It uses the patterns too, see if you can identify each one.